Priority Applications for Transmission Infrastructure guidance: Section 37 of the Electricity Act 1989

7. Submission of the Application

By the date the application is made, all necessary documentation shall be uploaded to the Energy Consents portal. A complete application will consist of, at a minimum:

• location plan and site plan, showing clearly and at appropriate scale the location of all infrastructure for which section 37 consent and deemed planning permission (where relevant) is sought, including towers or poles, and any ancillary development;
• the entirety of the environmental information required in an EIA report, where the proposal is deemed to be EIA development;
• an explanation of how all the scoping responses from statutory consultees have been addressed (for EIA developments);
• details of the established need for and of the anticipated benefits of the project;
• a detailed explanation of all alternative options considered and why discounted;
• a pre-application consultation report setting out the information provided to the public and procedures carried out, and how comments received from the public have been considered in formulating the final design of the proposal;
• a planning statement;
• a schedule of mitigation measures;
• a suggested set of conditions based on ECU 'model’ section 37 conditions;
• a statement confirming the Applicant’s view that that all necessary environmental information has been submitted with the application, and that it does not anticipate the need to propose any substantive changes to the development;
• a statement confirming whether all the required wayleaves have been agreed with the owners and occupiers of the land proposed to be crossed by the line and whether it is proposed that any applications may be made to the Scottish Ministers under paragraph 6 of schedule 4 to the Electricity Act 1989, or that an order is proposed to be made under schedule 3 to the Act ; and
• all other supporting application documents including a cover letter which includes a description of all of the components of the development requiring consent and deemed planning permission (including the length of the proposed line and its nominal voltage), designed for inclusion in any consent decision.

The EIA report must be based on the Scoping Opinion issued by the Scottish Ministers, and any information or assessment that has been identified to the Applicant as being required by statutory consultees following the issue of the scoping opinion, unless otherwise agreed by the Scottish Ministers.

Notwithstanding the receipt as part of the application of the Applicant’s stated view that all the necessary environmental information has been provided and that no substantive changes to the project will be proposed, the Scottish Ministers understand circumstances arise whereby there may be changes to an application at this stage. Should a substantive change be made or should ECU or DPEA determine (having considered the evidence before them) that additional environmental information is required, then the application may not be able to be decided within 52 weeks, and a new timescale for determination will require to be agreed. The application would still be treated as a priority over other section 37 applications and processed as quickly as possible once the additional information has been submitted, but this would be subject to the availability of Reporters/ECU case officers. If additional environmental information is submitted, section 6.4 of the ECU Good Practice Guidance for Applications under Section 36 and 37 of the Electricity Act 1989 will be relevant.

Applications that need the consent of Scottish Ministers incur a fee under The Electricity (Applications for Consent and Variation of Consent) (Fees) (Scotland) Regulations 2019. In order to determine the correct fee to be paid on making an application, an online fee calculator is available. Further details on application fees can be found at “Application and fee requirements” on the relevant ECU webpage.